Main navigation

PRE-ORDER NOW

ABOUT THE BOOK:In the tradition of Donald Miller comes the fresh voice of Matt Bays, offering hope to those who have experienced deep loss or pain and crave more than trite answers about God and suffering.

If God is Love
Why Do We Hurt So Much?

When the reality of your pain doesn’t line up with what you’ve been taught in church, then what? While many abandon their faith or embrace hopelessness, it is possible to discover the God who heals your heart in the midst of the pain.

Matt Bays has been where you are. His unforgettable stories of loss and healing will usher you into a life where gratitude overpowers anger, hope overcomes despair, and hunger for God replaces indifference to God. With a fresh and original writing style, Bays demonstrates that true redemption is far more powerful than the temporary fixes of sanitized Christianity.

A Few Endorsements

“In Finding God in the Ruins we are given a unique gift, a rare invitation to listen to a hauntingly beautiful story where the darkest experiences of a person’s life are redeemed. While he wields the sensibilities of an artist and the words of a poet, Matt bluntly exposes the beauty buried in the brokenness of the world. Be prepared. This isn’t a book about clichés, easy answers, or simple faith. Finding God in the Ruins is a tenacious, relentless, and courageous pursuit of redemption that doesn’t go around the pain, hoping to get by with less heartache by tenderly skirting the edges of a wound. Rather, Matt takes us on a deep dive right into the heart of pain where, surprisingly, we find ourselves in the heart of God.”

“Finding God in the Ruins will make some readers shift in their chairs. I expect some will be tempted to scoot back from the table and leave just as the conversation gets going. I think that’s a good sign. This book is for people who have been afraid to tell the truth, afraid to look a painful past in the eye, afraid to speak uncertainties about God, and afraid they might be right about their unworthiness. By laying his own painful story plainly in the light, Matt is going first and making space for us to lay our own stories right there beside his. His writing is both powerfully poetic and accessible, and will make you laugh and cry in succession. Finding God in the Ruins is the start of a desperately needed conversation, giving believers and unbelievers alike permission to be real and to be on the lookout for hope and redemption in unlikely places.”

Christa Wells, GMA Dove Award– winning songwriter of the year

“A father with a sick son in need of healing said to Jesus, ‘I do believe, help me with my unbelief.’ Often the journey to believe begins with an honest confession of unbelief. Honest, not fake. If you struggle with God, have a ton of questions, have no time for cliché answers, but still long for hope, you are going to thoroughly enjoy the journey Matt Bays is taking you on through his own story. If you like things neat, tidy, and orderly, don’t you dare turn to the next page.”

Randy Frazee, author of Think, Act, Be Like Jesus and The Heart of the Story

“Gritty, raw, vulnerable, and even at times uncomfortable, Finding God in the Ruins tackles the pain and brokenness of this world with the kind of compassion that lifts the veil of shame, allowing God to expose himself to the heart of humanity. Matt Bays is a brave soul who isn’t afraid to search, to question God, and to sit with you in your pain as you slowly, gently, find yourself wrapped in the arms of a God who loves you beyond what you ever thought possible.”

Logan Wolfram, author of Curious Faith, speaker, CEO of Allume

“Finding God in the Ruins is raw, honest, and hopeful. A heartbreakingly beautiful story that shows us a new and interesting perspective on elements of faith and our relationship with Jesus.”

Jon McLaughlin, songwriter/recording artist

“Chock-full of wisdom and insight, Matt Bays delivers a deeply moving account of pain, doubt, and ultimately hope. Bays delivers his powerful message with wisdom, humility, and heart. I am certain his stories will stay with me long after I’ve turned the last page. Powerful. Deeply human. Unforgettable.”

Lori Nelson Spielman, bestselling author of The Life List and Sweet Forgiveness

“Matt Bays knows about pain and suffering, and writes about it with the raw transparency of someone who has experienced deep loss. But this book exhales genuine hope on every page, pointing to the expansive God who sits with us when we are lost, weeping with us and helping us to finally find our feet again. If you are sitting in the midst of failure and loss, pick up this book and find the God who is already there with you.”

Steve Wiens, author of Beginnings

“With rare vulnerability, wounded healer Matt Bays offers compelling evidence of the importance of reclaiming our stories. Heartrending vignettes offer insight into the certainty that although we may never find answers to the ‘whys’ of our wretchedness, we will find God there in the ruins.”

Amy K. Sorrells, survivor advocate and award- winning author of the novels How Sweet the Sound, Then Sings My Soul, and Lead Me Home

“Matt Bays has written an insightful narrative that explores the biblical metaphor of redemption. While rejecting a simplistic salvation that promises peace and prosperity to all who believe, the author explores human suffering from the biblical idea that the God who took on flesh enters into human suffering and redeems it. Through personal stories, Matt Bays invites the reader to explore a theodicy that is critical but compassionate. His is a real and refreshing invitation to allow our stories to speak words of hope to fellow strugglers. I recommend this book for both personal and group study.”

David Sebastian, dean emeritus at Anderson University School of Theology

National Release March 2016, David C. Cook along with eBook and audio version.

Share this:

36Comments

Love Love Love the song you and sister sing….would love to buy it….but where?….I am fighting cancer for the third time…..really need to be able to listen to the music. also have a friend dying of cancer…..Keep up the good work!!! So many are fighting …..

Matt
The devotionals on you version have been refreshing and raw and have met me where I am. I am looking forward to the when your book comes out. You have reminded me again that God is in the ruins and can take the junk and use it for His glory. It’s hard to just let go of the junk. “Come as You Are” by Crowder cone to my mind in that God doesn’t expect me to come to him all polished up . Just come and He’ll fix what he needs to fix in my life. Thank you again.

Matt,
Really needing to “Find God in the Ruins”. Looking forward to being able to read your book! I lost my husband and son in a car accident 14 years ago (husband 44, son 16).
That left my daughter and myself. She was 19 at the time. I have tried to put my life back together over the years – marrying in 2004 – a horrible mistake – he was only in it for money – relationships with “Christian men with integrity” were painful and led to more pain; another marriage in 2011 to a man 7 years older – strong in the Christian faith – who has now abandoned me and wants a divorce; my mother, who was a single parent to myself and my younger sister, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 2006 and I “begged” God to please heal her as I just wasn’t ready to lose her too – and He gave her another 9 years – she passed a year ago almost to today (February 6/15); my daughter was/is also damaged emotionally with the loss of her father and only sibling – she did marry though and has three boys, my beautiful grandsons, 12, 11 and 8. Yet we carry the scars that never seem to heal, of asking “why” and wishing they could have been “Grandpa” and “Uncle” and “Brother in Law” etc. to her family now; it has also affected mine and my daughters relationship to the point of her feeling pressure to “make it all up to me somehow” and me feeling similar thoughts to her, to the extent that our relationship becomes extremely dysfunctional at times. I am so broken right now. I am 60 and I feel broken, exhausted and like my life is basically over. I feel that I cannot honestly sing those worship songs “Blessed Be your Name” (he gives and takes away etc.) His word says “All things work together for good to those who love God, who are called according to His purpose”. I can’t see it – I don’t get what “good” has come of His taking of my husband and son. I get all the “cliches” too! From well meaning people, yes. But sometimes they make me want to scream!! It’s just not working!!!!!
Life is not working anymore!!!!! Thank you for “listening/reading”. I will be buying your book. Your video clip really spoke to me – it was “real”! Thank you! And I will be praying for your sister Tina! God Bless you!

Debby, thank you for your honesty. I totally get it. Life can be overwhelming and so many of the things that come our way, we didn’t ask for and we feel incapable of handling in a “godly way”. I think we put too much pressure on ourselves…always trying to get to a place where the dust has settled before it’s time. I hear your heart…that at 60 you are ready for some peace…long overdue peace. I’m so sorry you are not in that place yet. I am thinking and hoping for you tonight, that you will be surrounded by hearts that understand and care…sometimes this alone can actually hold us over until the sun breaks through. I hope my book is a companion and you hear God saying all throughout it “You are not alone. You are enough. You are stronger than you think you are. You are loved. I am here…always.”

I am brought to tears with your honesty. I have been a “Christian” for over 40 years. My story is pale compared to yours and others. I love your honest truth, the unveiling, the “coming out of hiding.” I only wish I could. I am struggling with my faith at this writing and have for a good 4 or more years. I can’t run away, I am currently employed by a church and much is expected. I try to think of myself as a “secret agent.” Ha! Seriously, I have known, very personally, those that have experienced their share of abuse. I am listening….

I too am looking forward to getting this book, hopefully tomorrow! I stumbled upon your videos through the YouVersion bible reading plan through a David Cook email this evening. I’m so glad I did.

All of this resounds deeply within my heart and has reminded me I am not alone. The tsunamis of this life truly have wreaked destruction and brokenness more deeply than I ever could have imagined….and they keep powering through as if they are intended to never stop until……

My heart identifies too with Debby and how heartbreakingly beautiful her story is to hear. I can’t imagine having the strength to endure what she has endured. Debby, I think you are a hero to all of us who think we can’t make it another day.

Your strength and ability to keep going another day…when your heart is broken and nothing feels “right” about anything….WOW! What a beautiful testimony of immeasurable strength.

Thank you Matt and Debby! You have both encouraged me tonight…(this morning)…

Thank you, Jayson. I appreciate you speaking strength and hope here. You are definitely NOT alone. I hope you find meaning in the book and in your darkness and pain, that it will be a companion to you. Blessing…peace, hope, love and all good things.

Thank you Jayson. Maybe some of the “good” that has come out of my pain, the pain of us all, is the ability to give others encouragement and hope when we share our stories. For me to be able to “soldier on” is only by the strength that God infuses me with, because I know without a shadow of a doubt, if it were only up to me and under my own strength, I would no longer be here. So often, as I’m flailing around in the ocean of heartache and pain, thinking surely this time I will drown, the “Life Preserver” floats within my reach at just the right time, and I grab on and make it through another storm. And I know that He still has an amazing plan for my life! When we trust in Him, we are never alone. I will pray for you!

My goodness! I’m doing the devotional on the Bible app, let me tell you…. It is so refreshing! I have been trying to let God restore my ruins. It is rough. I have felt guilty for having questions, doubts, and sometimes I am just mad. I recognize I am flawed but why is it so hard to put it all back together? What’s the point if saying ” OK, I get it, let’s fix it” and things get worse? And why do I always feel like a failure? It is so great to hear your words!!! I am not alone in having these thoughts. My hurts are still there…. Even when I pray about them. Thank you for your honestly.

You are NOT alone. We keep moving forward Zahira. The times we struggle…the times we have doubts and questions…this is a part of the journey. We are SUPPOSED to go through these times. So many don’t wish to speak of these things…they’d rather continue to hold on to the illusion of a slot-machine God who dispenses what we want when we want it rather than talk about the God of our wounds. Thank you for searching for him among the ruins of your doubt. I pray you will always find him there. Every detail of his face many not be recognizable…but I pray his form will be unmistakeable.

My 23 year old son is in a really dark place in his life .. Recently attempted to take his life …I would really like to share some of his pain and ask for your prayers and guidance but I’d like to contact you privately … I know you are busy .. When you have time ..send me an email so I could reply in private …thank you so much !

Angie, I am so sorry to hear about your son. In this moment, I am saying a prayer for him…and for you. Please feel free to contact my privately on my author page on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/mattbayswriter/

Matt, thank you for being obedient to your call and for putting your ‘stuff’ out there to help others. I truly believe God recues us so we can rescue others. Someday the Lord will give me the platform to tell my painful story but for now I will tell it vicariously thru you and your book by sharing and sharing as many time and with as many people as I can!

Hi Matt – my husband and I really enjoyed your book reading/signing at B&N Carmel on Sunday! Hearing you, the author, read aloud the passages that you wrote and lived, makes them come alive in a new way. What a blessing you are to so many! I imagine that in your journey of discovery and committing to paper all the events that have shaped you, God has prepared you to also be someone that others with similar stories can relate to and share with. What a heavy burden this will be. I will be praying for you. It almost makes me not want to share my own pains with you. No one else on this earth knows of my struggles. One thing that has stuck in my mind, as you mentioned in your book, is the shame of not resisting the abuse. I need to know how to shake that. It has given me this sick sense of feeling like the abuse needed to be worse for me to have a complaint, to be able to call it abuse, to validate the effects from it. I too, am a writer. But I suffer from disabling doubt. Doubting that my story is deep enough, “good” enough, bad enough for sharing, worthy of being heard. I’d love to hear how more about your process. Thank you!

That shame is paralytic…the shame of feeling it was possibly “consensual” or that you were “complicit”. That has to be worked through. I once heard a woman, regarding her abuse, refer to herself as “dirty” over and over. It’s the biggest lie, and perhaps the most dangerous, because it keeps us stuck.

A friend once told me, “All our pain is the same”.

Have you ever heard a person say, “I don’t really have a story”? They say this because they ASSUME nothing significantly painful happened in their life.

But here’s what I believe: I believe we all have an enemy seeking to destroy us. Sometimes this happens through abuse. Sometimes through being called “fatty” on the playground in elementary school. And that one simple lie can embed…attach to the fabric of our spirits and we end up carrying it with us, believing it, giving it power over us, for decades.

I know some stories are harder than others, but I’ve seen people who haven’t been through what I’ve been through, yet they still can’t seem to make life work. Why is that? It’s because they DO have a story, they just don’t know what it is. Going back to the wreckage – understanding where the lies we have believed come from – THAT is where our story is. And also, where our healing begins.

Matt
I found you a couple days ago on the you version bible app and just finished your book
Thank you for your courage and giving me the permission to open up the wounds
I was molested by my father and I always asked God why he did not come when I cried out to him.
Just a week ago I asked my son to promise he would throw away the journals I write in without reading them after I pass. He agreed and then this week you said for the wounded to tell their story
Thank you again and my heart goes out to you for your pain. Dee

Hi Matt,
I have just about finished reading your book. I love the way you tell your story and that you have been brave enough to articulate God’s apparent inaction in the midst of appalling injustice.
I am currently bruised and battered from one thing after another. I have felt like I’m going to break and it will not be possible to be put back together. And I can’t hear or feel God at all. Your words have made me feel like I am not alone and that there may be a way to find peace in the ruins. Thank you thank you thank you for writing your story.

I love this book and thank you so much for writing it. I have had a lot of “stuff ” in my life and for years I felt unworthy and like I just didn’t know who I was. It took my son’s addiction to push me to the edge and it was there that I finally began to heal from not just his painful situation, but from years of situations and events that started in my childhood that I had simply dismissed as God’s will.

I hid my son’s addiction for a long time because I thought people would think less of him…and me. But when he went to jail, I found my freedom and told my entire story to a close friend and now I am no longer ashamed of my son’s struggle. Healing is slow but I’m getting there and I am constantly placed in situations where my experiences are similar to someone else’s. Sharing gives me courage and somehow makes them less random. If I am helping someone else by telling them my story, my pain has some purpose. And I can give them hope. Nothing in my life has changed much except for me and my relationship with God, but that change has brought me peace and I try to find joy in every day. My most fervent prayers have not been answered and I have to accept they might never be, but I do believe I am a child of God and He loves me and He will bring me home one day. And if I get angry and shake my fist at Him in my sadness and frustration, I am sure He can handle that just fine because like my son who turns me into a screaming maniac, He knows I love Him, too.